Turkey's parliament receives citizen proposal to swap Istanbul and Ankara as seasonal capitals

In July, the Turkish Grand National Assembly's (TBMM) Petition Commission recorded 1,610 citizen applications, the majority coming from Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir. Among the diverse suggestions was a proposal to designate Istanbul as the winter capital and Ankara as the summer capital. Other notable ideas included banning the production of sharp‑pointed knives, renaming the region "Ege" to "Efe", prohibiting open‑air phone loudspeakers, closing shopping malls on Sundays, instituting a four‑day work week for civil servants, fixing rental prices for two years after natural disasters, and basing public‑sector hiring on academic grades.

Specific complaints also featured, such as residents of Şanlıurfa demanding repairs for defects in TOKİ‑built housing, concerns about park noise in Eskişehir, an unlicensed textile operation in Istanbul, and illegal water wells in Konya. The commission forwards these petitions to the relevant authorities for consideration.